What's Wrong With This Picture?

Hi,

I"ve been feeling my way blindly around Tattoo for awhile now. I finally figured out how to load my clothes into the avatar file so they can be previewed there. The file started out as a targa file which i changed into a .png file for Tattoo. I've tried it both "interlaced" and noninterlaces (whatever that means) and this is what i get: A whole bunch of wierd square color things around the edges of the clothing making it difficult to see the seams and such. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Also does someone know where i might fight a tutorial for Tattoo. I check its website and found none. No forum either.

Thanks

Interlaced means that the file is encoded differently so that it can be displayed progressively.

Basically, it encodes a blocky version of the image, then a more refined version, then a more refined yet version, etc. When the image is displayed in a browser or something, the image sort of rezzes in like you sometimes see textures do in SL, getting clearer and clearer. It's so that users can get an idea of what the whole picture looks like quickly, rather than starting at the top and working their way down as it loads.

It's not terribly useful for making clothes and skins, that I know of, since SL does what it needs to do on its own.

Have you viewed your PNG in a paint program (to make sure it got converted properly)?

Try saving it as a 32 bit targa. and upload that. If you send it to me, I can convert it with Photoshop CS, and give you a step-by-step guide.

Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

This picture was orginally a 32 bit targa file that i successfully uploaded into SL. I only converted it to a .png as a test to see if i can figure out how to preview the clothes i make in Tattoo.

Jip, are you saying that i should convert it back to a targa and send it to you? I'm a bit dense and i need things spelled out for me cuz i still noob....(somewhat)

Dyne, thanks for the explanation of what interlaced means...makes sense. I did open this .png file in paint and it looks pretty much as it does in Tattoo. No alpha at all, a white background with colored squares where the skin area should be. I then reopened in in ps7 and the alpha is present and it looks exactly as it should.

I know Tattoo supports alpha cuz i've drawn stuff on the av in there and sent it to ps7 and used it on an SL template. Somehow i'm converting it wrong. I'm attatching a pic of how it looks in PAINT and ps7. You don't really see the transparency around the blouse in ps7 here cuz i had to convert it to jpg to post here...but pretend you do?

Thanks

Lyric - I'm guessing here - but I think that it is indeed an alpha issue. Those funny colours look like semi-random garbage lying around in:

1. Your video card's memory: What this would mean is that Tattoo is not painting anything there (at all) when it should be painting the model's skin.
   
2. PS7's png encoder: Basically the png files contains that garbage (because no-one is supposed to see it anyway, it usually wouldn't be a problem)
   

I think that #1 is the most likely - it may have worked before and not work now if a driver change (for example) has shifted your systems alpha handling from software to hardware or vice versa. (PS itself has an option for this in preferences - maybe Tattoo does as well)

Workaround: when exporting to png for Tatoo, use a solid fill background layer (flesh coloured) and don't use alpha.

Lyric, it looks to me like the Alpha isn't enabled in the .png file.

Those blocks aren't random; they are derived from the colors of the edge pixels, extrapolated out. I'm not sure of the algorithm used, but I know that's what you see when something was taken from a picture with an Alpha Channel, but is being viewed without it.

I think that problem may be that you are making your .png files from Photoshop. I'm not sure that Photoshop supports the Alpha in .png files properly. At any rate, I know that I can't get them to work when I export them that way, and that the Save Alpha Channel checkbox is disabled in the Save dialog.

What I recommend is to make the .png files from Graphic Converter (which should have been bundled with your install software,) if you have access to a Mac, or from some similar software if you don't. The GIMP might do it; I don't know. But something else, anyway.

Or use .tif files, if Tattoo supports them.

Hope this helps.

I know what the problem is!

The boobies on the maniquin are too small, increase size that always makes everyone happy even if it doesnt fix your problem.

A great free program for doing file conversions on windows is Irfanview. It's a veritable swiss army knife and handles more formats (and odd flavors of formats) than you can shake a stick at. For previewing in Tatoo, I highly recommend using TGA instead of PNG. Looks like the PNG is being saved without a proper alpha channel.

Thanks for the responses everyone

When i changed the targa file into a .png i really didn't take notice whether or not the "save alpha" button was disabled or not. I don't know whether Tattoo supports .tiff files but i know for sure it doesn't support .targa or I would have just used that one. I normally don't have any problems with alpha files in ps7 and have sucessfully loaded every one of them i wanted into SL.

I'm wondering if I should have not tried changing a targa into a .png. Maybe i should just try making a test garment with its alphas and save it first as a .png and see what happens. Boy, i'm tellin ya if there's anyway somebody can screw up something, seems I'm always the one to find the "chinks" in the "armor" LOL

Thanks Chip for the link to Intraview, and btw...love your radio station, nice mix of different genres, all very easy to listen to

Well, scratch that idea...

alpha is disabled in ps7 when I try to save to .png. None of the other formats available except targa save alphas.

Ok, well tommorow's another day I'll try some other things....